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The 'Inconfidência Mineira' (Minas Conspiracy) of 1789, was a Brazilian independence movement.
It was a result of the confluence of external and internal causes. The main external cause was the repercussions in this Portuguese colony of the independence, in 1776, of the thirteen British colonies in North America, a development that particularly impressed the intellectual elite living in the captaincy of Minas Gerais. The main internal cause of the conspiracy was the decline of gold mining in that captaincy. As gold became less plentiful, the region's inhabitants faced increasing difficulties in fulfilling tax obligations to the crown. When the captaincy could not satisfy the royal demand for gold, it was burdened with an additional tax on gold, called ''derrama''.
Conspirators seeking independence from Portugal planned to rise up in rebellion on the day that the ''derrama'' was instituted. However, the conspirators lacked both well-formed plans and an overall leader. Some of the conspirators were republicans, others were monarchists. Some favored the abolition of slavery while others judged abolition as impractical at that time. The conspirators did put forth a few economic and social ideas: the promotion of cotton production, the exploitation of iron and saltpeter reserves, a proposal to give incentives to mothers to have many children, and the creation of a citizens' militia.
The conspiracy attracted a great number of military personnel, priests, and intellectuals, as well as the poets Cláudio Manuel da Costa and Tomás Antônio Gonzaga (1744-1807?). Among the best known participants were Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, best known as "Tiradentes"; José Álvares Maciel philosopher and chemistry student, and Lieutenant Colonel Francisco de Paula Freire de Andrade (1756-1792) of the regiment of the dragoons. Tiradentes, who came from Andrade's regiment, was the independence movement's most enthusiastic propagandist.
Eventually, three participants revealed the conspirators' plans to the government and the rebels were arrested in 1789. One of the informants, Joaquim Silvério dos Reis (1756-1792), became known as the Brazilian traitor.
Judicial proceedings against the conspirators lasted from 1789 to 1792. Lieutenant Colonel Francisco de Paula Freire de Andrade, Tiradentes, José Álvares Maciel, and eight others were condemned to the gallows. Seven more were condemned to perpetual banishment in Africa, the rest were acquitted. Following the trial Queen Maria I commuted the sentences of capital punishment to perpetual banishment for all except those whose activities involved aggravated circumstances. That was the case for Tiradentes, who took full responsibility for the conspiracy movement and was imprisoned in Rio de Janeiro, where he died on 1792-04-21. Afterwards, his body was torn into pieces, which were sent to Vila Rica in the captaincy of Minas Gerais, to be displayed in the places where he had propagated his revolutionary ideas.